STRIKE 1: In The Post, Jordan Steffen writes about Ms. Puppy’s last moments on the run. Monte Whaley tells us that Adams County Assessor Gil Reyes pleaded guilty last week for not reporting that he received baseball tickets from an official at a company that received big tax breaks. Karen Auge sat in on the first day of testimony at the Douglas County School District’s voucher program’s trial and listened as opponents said it wrongly allows public money to flow to religious schools. Carlos Illescas tells us about a new driving course at the Arapahoe County Fairgrounds to train emergency workers on how to zip through traffic. And Sara Burnett reported on the confirmation of new federal judge R. Brooke Jackson, bringing Colorado’s roster of full-time federal judges up to full strength for the first time in three years.

STRIKE 2:The Aspen Times reports on Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan’s speech in the town last night, where Kagan told the crowd that the Supreme Court is really a much nicer place than its opinions make it seem. The Fort Collins Coloradoan has the story of a woman arrested yesterday to face 19 charges of animal-cruelty after she previously skipped bail in the case, then returned to the state to reclaim “her kids” — the animals seized from her, two of which have already had to be euthanized because of health problems.

STRIKE 3:The New Orleans Times-Picayune reports on the closing arguments in the trial of five current and former police officers over the shootings of six people — two of whom were killed — on New Orleans’ Danzinger Bridge in the aftermath of Hurrican Katrina and the subsequent cover-up. This Associated Pressstory also has a good rundown of the complicated case. Speaking of the AP, its reporter in Oregon tells us — via The Miami Herald of all places — about a tiny town in the mountains of the state’s southwest that has the highest rate of medical-marijuana growers of any place in the state: nearly 20 percent of the population. The Los Angeles Times, meanwhile, has a more sober story, about the large number of deaths in Yosemite National Park this summer, including one this week when a woman slipped and fell down the backside of Half Dome during a storm.